Thursday, 22 December 2016

Not getting on the property ladder

Grace Church has now been actively looking for a permanent building for a little over 6 months now. Those who know the area we are in will know as a former RAF base all the land was sold to Peel Holdings and there is precious little land in the area owned by anyone else. We've spent the last 6 months enquiring as to the availability and cost of various pieces of land or property. We have so far drawn a total blank. Peel have nothing that is suitable for us. The vacant, for sale, piece of land next to our house, which has been a car park of sorts for 12 years is for sale at offers over £1.2million (slightly beyond our budget)for an acre and a half. We enquired about properties for rent or sale on the various business parks only to be told that they would not let or sell to a church because the owners want them to be business parks.

More recently we have been in contact with the council about any land available as part of the building of the new airport road (FARRRS). But have heard this week that they are only compulsory purchasing the land required to build the road and so there will not be any land available to buy or build on. The former local post office, that would be less than ideal but is vacant is being developed as further office space. And the area of land, empty and disused, owned by South Yorkshire Housing Association they want to hold on to and will not sell.

It leaves us with few places to go. We are very blessed in that we have a great working relationship with the school we hire, and there is no pressure from them for us to leave. However, due to building work at the school we have had to stop our coffee morning and are just meeting there on a Sunday morning. We are also limited as to what we can offer to serve and meet the community by not having our own building. We remain convinced that God is good and sovereign and that though his ways are not our ways he will build his kingdom. We are sure what he has in store for us is better than we can imagine even if we cannot see what that is yet. And so I'd ask you to pray with us and for us.